


Their In-Between Days

by suburbanmotel



Category: Long Exposure (Webcomic)
Genre: Anal Sex, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blow Jobs, Boys In Love, Boys Kissing, Cuddling & Snuggling, Falling In Love, Hand Jobs, Holding Hands, Insecurity, M/M, Mutual Pining, POV Alternating, Sharing a Bed, True Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-14
Updated: 2019-07-14
Packaged: 2020-06-27 22:37:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19799167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suburbanmotel/pseuds/suburbanmotel
Summary: //“You’re like.” Mitch stops and grabs his head in both hands, fingers digging in hard. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. “I don’t even have the right words, y’know? You’re like. Ifoundyou. And you’re. You’re like.” Now he drops his arms to his sides and kind of sags. He hasn’t given up, he’s just exhausted. He looks right at Jonas and says, “You’reart.”Jonas blinks. “I’m what?”//





	1. Found Objects

**Author's Note:**

> I pretty much devoured this webcomic in about two days and then I sat back and realized I needed to write _something_ about these sweet, difficult, complex, delightful characters. This is an AU of sorts, a trilogy of little stories, taking place near the end of the school year, during the summer, and into September, diverging from the canon plot. Some hope, some guilt, some desire, some love.

//

I wanted to be sure this was our island  
so we could walk between the long stars by the sea  
though your hips are slight and caught in the air  
like a moth at the end of a river around my arms  
I am unable to understand the sun your dizzy spells  
when you form a hand around me on the sand

_~ From Summer (a love poem), Frank Lima_

//

Found Object: Originates from the French _objet trouvé_ , describing art created from undisguised, but often modified, objects that are not normally considered materials from which art is made, often because they already have a non-art function.

//

1\. The Cove

And then come their in-between days.

The school year tumbles to its end, faster with each passing week, then day, then hour. Jonas grasps onto everything he can, but it all slips away despite his best efforts to clutch each second to his chest and hold on tight. It’s not school he wants to cling to, not at all, because fuck Neil and his Neanderthal cronies. No, it’s Sidney, and Madison and Lewis. It’s Javier and Scratch and Cliff. It’s _Mitch_. It’s knowing that everything will change and nothing will stay the same and and _and_.

He’ll graduate, he knows, of course he’ll graduate. He and Sidney applied to the same schools, of course, and were both accepted to the same schools, of course, and both decided on U Hartwell, three hours away, full scholarships, because of course, how else would they manage. Mitch will graduate, too, thank god, by the skin of his teeth, because Jonas made sure of it.

They don’t talk about it, about the end of the school year, about the summer looming hot and heavy, about what comes after that.

“You’re gonna be so great,” Mitch says, once, just once, when Jonas gets his acceptance and stands stares at the sheet of paper, mouth slightly open. He doesn’t know how to react. How should he react? He’s thrilled. He’s scared to fucking death. He looks up and Mitch is watching him. He looks so goddamn proud. He looks happy. He looks resigned. _Happily proudly resigned._ “Honour student, Brainiac, the smartest person I know, and smart enough to know _better_.” He rolls his eyes, like he does when he remembers the two of them are actually together, that they’re a _thing_. “I don’t have a fuckin’ clue what yer doin’ with me—”

And Jonas kisses him, hard, because he doesn’t want to think about it, doesn’t want to talk about _any_ of it. But sometimes words just slip out when he’s not paying attention because Mitch needs to know and Mitch _needs to hear_.

“You’re not dumb,” Jonas tells him under the porch roof as rain pours down and down around them. Jonas has his hands just under the waistband of Mitch’s jeans, above the swell of his ass and they’re both hard and aching and the rain smells so sweet.

“You’re not dumb,” Jonas says against dry, curled lips with Mitch’s back against the rough trailer wall, fingers curled tight into damp T-shirt ( _F*CK! All I Need is U_ ) and Mitch breathing hard into his shoulder.

“You’re not _dumb_ ,” Jonas whispers against Mitch’s neck taut with tendons and sweat slicked on the couch while Sue is shopping and Sidney's at work and the house is hot and close around them.

“Yeah, I know,” Mitch says, but Jonas doesn’t believe him. “I’m plenty smart,” Mitch says, hips rolling. “I got _you_ , didn’t I?”

And when Mitch looks at him like that, Jonas’ breath hitches and he wants to keep it all and remember it all forever. He wants to hang on. He wants to stop time. He falls against Mitch and hugs him until bones creak under his weight.

Summer, summer, summer.

//

Jonas has a part-time job tutoring kids in math and English in the whisper-cool air of the library. He helped Mitch put together a completely professional looking resume with the scant information available and helped him hand them out around town but Mitch’s name and general demeanor do little to endear himself to prospective employers.

“It’s fine,” Mitch says, shrugging, one-shoulder, when he hears nothing back, when he sees the look of astonishment or fear or derision on shop-owners’ faces. “It’s fine.” But Jonas can hear the bitterness, the resentment, the utter resignation. There’s defeat and shame in the slump of his broad shoulders and the name Mueller doesn’t fare well in this town.

//

Things they don’t talk about: College. Dean. September.

//

They kiss often at the Cove, on the sand, on the shore, in the water. Something about the solitude, the circle of trees surrounding them, green arms long and broad, Jonas thinks more than once, all of these things embolden them, give them courage. 

Jonas brings towels in his backpack, and snacks, bottles of water. He spreads the towels out neatly beside each other, and Mitch kicks off his shoes and flops down, long limbs flailing, messing everything up. He lies on his back, arm thrown over his face against the sun’s glare while Jonas prowls the shoreline. He hunts and gathers, picks up whatever he finds, shoves some into backpack pockets and pants pockets, while others are arranged in a pile by the tree line.

Stones, beach glass, one bike pedal, bronze faucet head, sunglasses with both arms and one lens gone. He collects them all, these bizarre objects, all reminders of their time together, timeless in the cove’s embrace.

Time slows down here. Jonas can tell from the position of the sun, when it’s time to go home, when it’s time to go to work, but it’s different here, with the two of the and the water and the salt air, the pines and the sand. Sometimes Mitch walks with him and sometimes they hold hands. Sometimes Mitch tackles him to the ground and tickles him until he’s gasping and crying and then Mitch kisses him until he gasping some more.

Jonas digs his toes into the sand and lets the waves rush forward and back, forward and back, sucking the sand out from beneath his feet. When he looks up, Mitch is watching him. He’s sitting on the sand, leaning back on long arms, head tilted to the side, squinting a bit in the early summer sun. He’s just watching, mouth open a bit.

Jonas lies beside him, panting, looking up at the impossibly blue sky. There are no clouds today and the trees surround them, tall and green and there are no military men chasing them and there’s no Dean and there’s no school and it’s just them. Jonas closes his eyes.

He drowses for a bit, dreams in bright colours, yellows and blues and pinks, and when he startles and awakes Mitch is watching him. Mitch watches him a lot, Jonas knows, but right now the watching is different. Soft and sharp at the same time. Jonas swallows, wipes at his eyes, wipes damp palms on the thighs of his pants.

“What?” he says, tilting his head. He feels sluggish and shy, feels the skin of his cheeks heating under Mitch’s steady, almost solemn gaze. “What is it?”

“What were you dreaming about?” Mitch says. His voice is low but demanding. He really wants to know and he’s not going to let Jonas off the hook or lie about it.

Jonas opens one eye. “You,” he says and Mitch snorts. “Us,” he continues and Mitch closes his mouth and stops laughing.

“Oh yeah?” Jonas can feel Mitch’s hot summer hand on his arm, sand scraping between skin. “Like what exactly?”

But Jonas can’t find the words to explain so he jumps up and covers Mitch’s body with his and kisses and kisses him to make him stop asking these questions.

When the light starts to fade, Jonas packs up their towels and food and shoves sandy feet into his shoes and when he looks up Mitch is doing that thing again, that thing where he watches, eyes dark and hooded, hands shoved deep into jean pockets.

“You ready?” Jonas says, suddenly unsure.

Mitch lets out a long sigh.

“What?” Jonas hefts his backpack up. He waits. He’ll always wait for Mitch.

“You’re like.” Mitch stops and grabs his head in both hands, fingers digging in hard. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. “I don’t even have the right words, y’know? You’re like. I _found_ you. And you’re. You’re like.” Now he drops his arms to his sides and kind of sags. He hasn’t given up, he’s just exhausted. He looks right at Jonas and says, “You’re _art._ ”

Jonas blinks. “I’m what?”

Mitch looks like he’s going to continue, like maybe he’s going to explain, but the sun is setting and it’s time to go home.

//

When they swim, they swim with the electric light of Jonas’ colours. So much pink in curls and ribbons swirling around them. Mitch can swear he feels them touch his bare skin. They strip naked and throw their clothes, splat, on the shore. Jonas pushes up hard against Mitch, slippery as Mitch clutches Jonas’ hips and pulls him tight. Jonas goes willingly, pliant, their dicks hard against each other. Jonas pulls him down, pulls him under and Mitch holds his breath like Jonas taught him. But this time Jonas kisses him, open mouth with tongue, water in their mouths, their noses until they push up gasping and laughing and coughing.

“What the fuck, Joey,” Mitch says, sputtering salt water, wiping at his hair. He’s pale and long and hard and perfect in the water with the dark sky overhead and the trees around them. Jonas crowds up against him, takes him in his hand and kisses him as he strokes him. Mitch expels hot breath and a groan, wet hands on Jonas’ shoulders.

“You,” Jonas says and he keeps stroking. Mitch bends and falls against him, coming hot over Jonas’ hand into the water around them. “You are beautiful.”

And Mitch doesn’t have anything to say about that.

//

Things they don’t talk about: September. Dean. College.

//

Their collection grows: half a set of dentures. Ceramic tiles. Beach glass. A note in a bottle but the water got in and ruined it. One flip flop, orange. Half a Barbie. Fish bones. Shark tooth. Tea cup. Watch without a band.

Jonas stares at the watch, at the hands that don’t move anymore, at time holding still forever at 5:37. He slides it into his pocket and if Mitch sees, he doesn’t ask why.

//

The sky darkens and the trees curve in and the water laps at their toes and Jonas pulls Mitch down so they’re lying pressed close together, chest and hips and thighs. Mitch rests on his elbows and Jonas cups the back of his neck and then the back of his head. Mitch opens his mouth like he’s going to say something, but Jonas pulls him down even closer and kisses him until they can’t breathe, kisses him like they’re still underwater.

//


	2. The Object of His Affection

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> //
> 
> In the car, in the dark, sometimes it feels like they’re flying and sometimes it feels like they’re not moving at all, stuck in time, caught on the edge of now and then, here and there. With the dark around them and the engine roaring and their hands entwined on the upholstery between them, they can imagine, just for a minute, that everything is going to be ok.
> 
> //

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 2\. The Car

//

and we dreamed of his long  
teeth in our necks. We  
wanted them to wander over,  
place deep wet underarms to  
our lips, and then their white  
asses, then those loud mouths.

_~ Dennis Cooper, After School, Street Football, Eighth Grade_

//

Object of My Affection, _noun_ : Used as a term of endearment.

Synonyms: beloved, love, darling, dearest, honey.  
Boyfriend. Mr. Right.  
First and last.  
One and only.

Love of my life.

//

When Scratch is feeling particularly generous or knows she’s going to spend the better part of the night high, she lets Mitch borrow the car. This is a Big Deal and much appreciated by the receiving parties. Having the car means a taste of freedom and, even better, a taste of privacy.

It also means driving very fast.

“Be nice to her,” Scratch says, taking a deep drag and exhaling huge clouds around her face.

“Yeah, yeah,” Mitch says. He’s got the keys in one hand and Jonas’ elbow in the other. He’s jittery, ready to go.

“You two behave now,” says Javier with a wink and leer, while Cliff snorts beside him. “No glove no love,” he singsongs.

“Fuck,” Mitch mutters under his breath as he drags Jonas away. Jonas is sure his face is flaming red but he can’t help bite his lip and laugh, too. It’s summer and it’s warm and he’s _happy_.

Mitch is, surprisingly, a good driver. He got his license when he was 16, he tells Jonas as he takes a corner swiftly and adeptly, first try, even. Some of Freddie’s friends had taken pity on him, let him practice with their shitty cars, brought him along on drives and yelled advice over one another, gave him encouragement. Which is exactly what he does for Jonas when they reach the town’s outer limits. Not the yelling, just the encouragement.

“Good. Good. Doin’ good,” he says as Jonas lurches and lumbers along, tires spinning on loose stones, tongue caught between his teeth and fingers clenched on the steering wheel. Night is falling and Mitch leans over and turns the headlights on. He lets his hand linger on Jonas’ thigh, kneading the tight muscle beneath his fingers. “You can relax there, Joey. There’s no one out here to see or anything.”

Jonas nods and expels a long breath, blinks sweat out of his eyes. He finally pulls into an empty parking lot at the side of the road, entrance to a hiking trail, hidden under a cloak of trees, shoves it in park and cuts the engine.

“Holy shit,” he says, thumping his forehead against the wheel. Mitch squeezes the back of his neck.

“You did good! Honest.” Mitch rolls the window down and lights a dart. “The first time I drove I ended up in a ditch, true story.” They sit quietly for a minute, watching the sky darken, listening to the bugs drone around them. They haven’t seen a car pass in an hour. Jonas’ heart is still skipping when he leans back and lets his head loll.

“Thanks,” he says, followed immediately by, “I wanna blow you in the back seat.”

Mitch chokes. He coughs so hard that Jonas has to pound him on the back a few times. Mitch’s eyes are red and watering and he has to wipe his nose on suspiciously crumpled napkins he finds in the glove compartment. He tosses his cigarette out the window and takes a deep, cleansing breath.

“Ok,” he nods. “Let’s do this.”

The backseat is small and cramped but they make it work. They have to make it work. Jonas slides down Mitch’s long, taut body, hands slipping up under his worn red tee ( _bull shiRt_ ) and fingers sliding over his hard nipples. Mitch hisses and throws his head back against the window with a solid thwack. He yelps and Jonas laughs and Mitch starts swearing and rubbing his head, grumbling about his height and the lack of leg room and the overall impracticality of the evening’s endeavours but Jonas is nothing if not determined.

“Is this like, some kind of fantasy of yours, Joey? Like, gettin’ lucky in the back seat of a car, cuz I have to say, reality is _not_ —”

But his words are choked off with a shout muffled against the palm of his hand as Jonas finally works his dick free and swallows him down after a long, focused lick up.

“Sweet Jesus,” Mitch mutters, eyes fluttering shut, fingers sliding into Jonas’ dark curls and pulling just a bit as Jonas sucks and bobs. He pins Mitch’s hips down as he works, but Mitch is strong and the need to move is stronger. “Joey—” he says, voice gone scratchy like he’s swallowed sand, and it’s all the warning Jonas gets before Mitch is bucking up and coming into his mouth, against the side of his face. Jonas works him through the end and pants against the soft skin of his inner thigh. Mitch strokes his hair again and again as he catches his breath, then pulls Jonas up, kisses him on the mouth and slides a hand down the front of his jeans.

“You,” Mitch says, licking the salt from Jonas’ lips. “You. _You._.”

Jonas nods and gasps and bites at the side of Mitch’s neck as he comes, too, hot and hard and slippery on black vinyl on a hot July night on a deserted road.

//

Mitch gets a job at a local fish and chips house — Fry Days — greasy but respected and ridiculously popular — busing tables and washing dishes. Jonas is so proud he could burst and he hugs Mitch so hard he hears his spine crack.

“Easy Joey,” Mitch says but his face is flushed. “It’s not that big a deal.”

“It’s _good_ ,” Jonas says and he means it. He waits outside while Mitch has his interview, hands clenched in his lap, sweat forming along his hairline, and when Mitch walks out after, Jonas knows, he just knows. The owner, Mr. Bradford, makes a point of saying he was _very impressed_ with Mitch’s resume and that he knew Henrietta years ago.

“Nice lady,” he says and he means it, too. “I heard what happened. Tough break.”

Mitch swallows and nods once, tight, doesn’t say anything.

“You’re a good boy, yes?” Mr. Bradford says, looking Mitch right in the eyes. Mitch blinks and opens his mouth and Jonas steps up closer and smiles, bright and wide.

“He’s the best,” he says. “You will not be disappointed.”

Mr. Bradford looks at Jonas, then at Mitch, then nods, satisfied. “I think you’re right.”

“Don’t be nervous,” Jonas says before Mitch’s first shift. He thinks Mitch looks terribly handsome in his white shirt and black pants and he wants to put his hands all over him.

“I’m _not_ ,” Mitch says and rakes his hair back with trembling hands.

“You’re gonna be great,” Jonas says and kisses him softly on the cheek, on the mouth.

“I’m _not nervous_ ,” Mitch says, then hugs Jonas hard and lifts him up off the ground.

“You’re gonna be _great_ ,” Jonas says against the side of Mitch’s face. Mitch nods.

And he _is_ great. Within a week Mr. Bradford is letting him prepare simple sides and dishes and the week after that he’s cooking full meals a few shifts a week. He brings leftovers to the cove in grease-stained cardboard containers, and they sit side by side on the sand and he makes Jonas try everything.

“Only if you do, too,” Jonas says. Mitch purses his lips and clenches his teeth, tendons working in his neck. Jonas can see his bones stretched tightly over muscle and sinew and bone, knows what they all feel like, trembling under his fingers. He also knows the sound of desperate retching in the school bathroom cubicle and he says softly, “Please.”

Mitch nods at last, resolved, and lets Jonas feed him. “S’good,” he says, eyes meeting Jonas’ eyes, mouth upturned. He licks batter off his fingers, licks at the hollow in Jonas’ neck, swallows soggy fries, throat working hard. Jonas throws himself against him, hugs him so hard, fingers digging into the ribs in Mitch’s back.

“Of course it is,” Jonas says.

“I made that,” Mitch says, grinning.

“Yeah,” Jonas says between kisses. “You did.”

//

In the car, in the dark, sometimes it feels like they’re flying and sometimes it feels like they’re not moving at all, stuck in time, caught on the edge of now and then, here and there. With the dark around them and the engine roaring and their hands entwined on the seat between them, they can imagine, just for a minute, that everything is going to be ok.

//

He’s past curfew. He finds Sue sitting at the table with a mug of tea long gone cold cupped between her hands. She’s crying, or she’s been crying, face tear-tracked.

“Is everything—” he stops, shakes his head. Of course everything isn’t ok. Of course. He’s managed, somehow to push it all back and focus on nothing else other than summer and Mitch and Mitch and Mitch. He can feel come drying in his pants, sticky against his stomach and he has to try very hard not to smile.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do, Jonas,” she says. “It’s all. It’s.” She shakes her head and her eyes are shiny but she doesn’t cry.

Sidney’s light is on in her room, warm yellow strip melting out from under her closed door. Jonas knocks once, lightly before entering. She’s asleep on her bed, book clutched to her chest. Jonas pries it from her loose fingers, bookmarks it and puts it on the table beside her. He kisses her forehead and turns off the light.

//

Jonas drives responsibly — “I have a good teacher,” he says when Mitch praises him — and he uses his turn signals and brakes for corners. He’s practices three-point turns and backing up and parking and when he’s feeling particularly brave, driving closer to town where there’s actual traffic on the streets. Mitch is supposed to be watching the road with him, but he watches Jonas instead. Jonas can see him, peripherally.

“What?” he says, scared to move his eyes left or right.

Mitch, caught, blushes but doesn’t look away. They could be nanoseconds away from plowing into the back of a truck or flying off a bridge, hurtling down to a rocky river bed, and Mitch wouldn’t care. At least they’d die together, Jonas thinks.

//

When Mitch can’t sleep he thinks of the car. He closes his eyes and imagines the thrum of the engine, the rumble under his ass, under his feet. He smells the smoke and ash and weed of the interior. He sees Joey’s face, soft and bright, illuminated in the streetlights. He imagines the soft skin under his hands, the sweet swell of his stomach and thighs, the impossible hardness between his legs, trembling and shaking as Mitch swallows him down, fingers trapped in his hair so tight. Mitch thinks of all this as he strokes himself in the night when he can’t sleep, the car the boy and he comes with a muffled shout, biting down on the pillow and spilling across the sheet and then he can sleep for a little while.

//

When Jonas can’t sleep he thinks of the car. When his heart feels like it’s racing up his throat, threatening to choke him he closes his eyes and forces himself to calm, one breath at a time, fingers unclenching, muscles relaxing. He’s in the car, he thinks, and he’s driving, or Mitch is driving, and the road ahead is clear and endless, no end in sight, heading away from work and family, away from school and Dean, and it’s just the two of them driving driving driving.

//


	3. Object Permanence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> //
> 
> "So," Jonas says, "you’re sticking around then?"
> 
> //

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 3\. The Cactus

//

Love came slouching along,  
an exploded silence  
standing a little apart  
but visible anyway  
in the yellow, silent, steaming light,  
while Guilt and Desire wrangled,  
trying not to be overheard  
by this trespasser.

_~ James Baldwin, Guilt, Desire and Love_

//

Object permanence is the understanding that objects continue to exist even when they cannot be perceived, seen, heard, touched, smelled or sensed in any way.

//

August closes around them like a trap.

Jonas has a calendar on the wall in his room. It arrived in the mail one day from J.R. Morrison Inc., _We are HERE for all YOUR Insurance NEEDS_ , filled with glossy but slightly grainy photos from around the world, places Jonas is sure he’ll never visit. He snags it before Sue or Dean can see, smuggles it up to his room under his shirt, clutched against his stammering heart. He keeps it under his pillow for a month before he thinks fuck it and pins it to the wall above his bed. January, Paris. March, Athens. April, Istanbul. Dublin. Dubai. New York City. There are big red Xs through almost all of August (Singapore) now and Jonas lies in the dark and stares and imagines him and Mitch packing their bags and boarding a plane and going away away away.

//

When he can, Jonas waits outside of Fry Days for Mitch to finish his shift. Sometimes, often, it’s late, very late, past 1am, but with Dean out of the picture these days, Jonas flies under the radar. He can breathe a bit. It’s warm, even past midnight, and it’s nice to sit and wait for his boyfriend in the dark like they’re just normal people who love each other.

“This boy?” Mr. Bradford pats Mitch’s shoulders hard as Mitch balls up his apron and looks at Jonas, then flushes and looks down, looks away, but Jonas can see his smile, how he bites at his bottom lip and swallows. “He’s a good boy. A good worker. Good boy.”

“Yeah,” Jonas says, smiling big and wide for the both of them. “He is.”

Mitch smells like grease and fish and sweat when Jonas licks him behind his ear and up the crease of his thigh where his skin is the whitest and most sensitive. Jonas is impatient and can’t wait for Mitch to shower because he wants him that bad. Mitch writhes beneath him, breathes his name over and over in Jonas’ bed, under the calendar with the big red Xs counting down the days. Jonas can’t tear his eyes away and after Mitch comes and after Jonas comes, he wraps his arms around Mitch and says he’d rather hang out at Mitch’s trailer from now on, if that’s ok with him.

//

Things they don’t talk about: September (Hong Kong).

//

Lorraine is passed out in her arm chair again so Jonas throws caution to the wind and rides Mitch in his bed. He’s usually too shy because Mitch’s bed is old and makes a lot of noise and Jonas makes a lot of noise, too, when he’s with Mitch. He can’t help it. It’s Mitch’s mouth and his hands and his fingers and his dick.

So Jonas rides him and there’s noise but Jonas doesn’t care and when he’s done with a gasp and a not-quite-muffled shout, he falls to his side and twines his fingers with Mitch’s and holds on tight.

He’s lying splayed on his back, sweat cooling on his chest and neck and semen cooling on his stomach and thighs. He can hear Mitch’s wheezing breaths beside him and he turns his head and sees the cactus. The one he saw the very first time he stepped foot in this room. The one aptly named World’s Biggest Dick and Jonas starts laughing. He can’t help it. It’s all so fucking stupid and sad and he’s leaving and he’s leaving one of the only people he really fucking cares about behind. With only the World Biggest Dick for company. He laughs until he starts crying and Mitch is hovering over him, eyes wide and scared.

“What’s the matter?” Mitch says, hovering above, thumbing at the bottom of Jonas’ eyes. Could be sweat. Could be tears. Jonas shrugs and takes a deep, shuddering breath.

“You just wore me out is all,” he says and pulls Mitch down, bites at his shoulder for good measure.

The cactus the cactus the cactus.

//

They spend a lot of time in Mitch’s sweatbox of a room in August. The little trailer is sweltering, the tiny window air conditioning unit in Lorraine’s room banging and rattling for dear life and barely making a dent in the heat of the dog days.

Mitch doesn’t talk about what they’re doing, or what’s coming up and despite what he says, he’s no dummy: he knows Jonas isn’t talking either. They haven’t discussed if, or when, Jonas will come home for visits, or whether he wants Mitch to visit, or whether they’re going to stay together or what this is or what they’re doing. They fuck and they kiss and they hug until it hurts and at night, when he’s trying to sleep, the shared scent of them fills Mitch’s nose. Under the grease of the restaurant that has seeped into his pores, he can smell Joey in every crevice and crack of his life. He pushes his face into the pillow until it’s hot with his skin and his breath, flips it but it’s no cooler on the other side, and the smell is even stronger. It’s Joey. It’s always Joey.

He’s everywhere.

//

“What are you doing?” Mitch says the third time he catches him doing it.

“Huh?” Jonas looks up from his phone, dazed, a million miles away.

“You’re taking photos of me,” Mitch says. They’re hunched together on the trailer’s front concrete stoop, huddled under the ratty overhang, out of the scorching sun. Mitch peers over to see Jonas’ phone and sure enough, there’s the side of Mitch’s face, his profile, looking somewhere to his left, head tilted, expression thoughtful and slightly goofy. He’d been thinking about Joey, is why.

Jonas doesn’t even look embarrassed. He stares down at the photo, traces it with one finger.

It keeps happening. Jonas doesn’t even try to hide it anymore, taking photos of Mitch doing any number of things, pulling off his apron after work, running a hand through his greasy hair, stretching after a shower, smiling after sex.

“Why you want so many pictures of my ugly mug?” Mitch asks one afternoon, face flushed pink, voice hard, eyes soft. He’s self-conscious, Jonas thinks, but flattered, but scared but but but. Jonas has never known anyone like him, has never known anyone with his face, his heart.

“Cuz you’re beautiful,” he says before he realizes he’s going to say it like that.

And he can’t tell him the real reason anyway, the reason he wants to many photos of this boy.

Keepsakes, he doesn’t say. For when you’re gone.

//

Jonas catches him on his phone, just once, looking up rental rates in Hartwell. Apartments, one bedroom, close to the university. Mitch quickly hides his phone and changes the subject.

He takes more shifts at the restaurant.

Jonas adds it to the list of things they don’t talk about.

//

The night before Jonas leaves Mitch folds him onto his back, sweaty against the sheets and slides into him, slow and steady and sure. He can’t meet his eyes for the longest time, his long strong body trembling above him, heart knocking around his chest. Jonas arches under him and when he comes his head tilts back, neck long and—

“I love you,” Mitch says into the hollow of his neck right _there_. “I love you I love you _I love you_ —”

 _Come with me_ , Jonas says against the slick of his skin, and he says it more than once, _come with me I don’t want to go without you_ , but the words are lost in the heat of the room as the bed bangs and the air conditioner bangs and everything bangs and rattles and bangs.

//

“Prairie voles mate for life,” Jonas says. Their skin is sticky hot, their hips and shoulders just touching.

Mitch looks at him. “What?”

“Prairie voles. Mate. For. Life.” Jonas turns, presses his lips to Mitch’s arm. “Well, for as long as their life is, which isn’t long. But they have a bond, you know?”

Mitch laughs. “No you nerd. I don’t know nothin’ about prairie voles.”

“Two or three years. That’s all they get,” Jonas presses on, relentless. “But they stay together and even if one of them dies, the other never gets a new partner.”

Mitch turns over, too, looks Jonas right in the face. “Is that so?”

“They huddle together. And groom each other. And they share parenting and they support one another.”

Mitch slides one hand around Jonas’ middle, runs fingers up and down his spine. “Seriously?”

Jonas nods. “Yeah.” He shuffles closer. Everything is sticky and smells like semen, smells like them. “And they’re not the only ones. Turtle doves, bald eagles, termites, albatrosses, wolves.” He pauses. “Schistosoma mansoni worms.”

Mitch _guffaws_. He kisses Jonas once, twice, on the lips, hard and then soft and then hard again. They drift off for a bit, lost in the heat and timelessness of Mitch’s room. Finally, Jonas rouses just enough to finish his story.

“But, I mean, a vole is the best one, right? Because it’s an anagram for love.”

//

When the sun slips through the cardboard taped over Mitch’s bedroom window, Joey slips from his bed and starts getting dressed Mitch has to turn away and scrub his hands against his eyes. Joey stands there when he’s ready and looks around the room and looks at Mitch before he leans down and kisses each eyelid, his nose, one cheek, his chin, his mouth. Then he turns and leaves.

They don’t talk.

//

He cries steadily for the first hour. Sidney wraps her arm around his shoulders and hugs him so tight it hurts and Sue watches him warily in the rearview mirror.

“It’s hard leaving home for the first time,” she says kindly. She doesn’t understand anything but Jonas lets her think she does. It’s easier than explaining that his fucking heart is being ripped in half.

“It’ll be ok,” Sidney whispers in his ear.

He licks snot from his upper lip and tries to believe her.

//

Jonas: I’m here

Mitch: ok good good to know

Jonas: I miss you already. Like I started missing you the second I left this morning and it’s just getting worse.

There’s no response for hours even though Jonas looks at his phone a hundred times, thumbs through the photos of Mitch until his eyes blur.

Jonas: Anyway I’m settled in my room and my roommate seems ok I guess. I hope your shift went ok. I mean you’re still there but I hope it’s going ok. I hope you’re ok and everything

He shoves the phone under his pillow and cries for a few minutes. Right before he falls asleep, hours later, he feels a buzzing under his head.

Mitch: I miss u to

//

Sometimes, when Jonas is walking across campus, he swears he sees him, tall and lanky, smirking like he’s got the biggest secret he may or may not share, but when he turns around, he’s not there. Of course he’s not.

//

Sometimes, when he’s cleaning out the grease trap, when he’s taking a smoke break in the back, when he’s teaching himself a new dish and taking a photo to send to Joey, he swears he’s right there, freckled and bright-eyed, smiling and leaning up on his toes for a kiss.

Sometimes he talks to him and sometimes he imagines he’s talking back.

//

The campus is big. The campus is loud and colourful and beautiful. The campus is incredibly lonely.

Jonas is crossing it at the beginning of November when he sees him. Really sees him this time. Mitch. Standing there. Holding the cactus in the middle of the campus. World’s Biggest Dick.

“You’re here.” Jonas says this without thinking but he doesn’t know what else to say. Mitch is standing in the middle of the campus, tall and gangly and unsure Mitch stands there with his cactus, suddenly shy and unsure. Jonas moves closer. “I’d like, hug you, but.” He gestures at the cactus and smiles, lopsided. He can’t stop fucking smiling. It feels like his face is going to split in two.

“I’ve been working a lot,” Mitch says, quick, like he’s been practicing and needs to get it out before he forgets or loses his nerve. “It’s why I haven’t been in touch too much. In case.” He pauses. “In case you were wondering. I’ve been saving up everything I’ve made and I’ve found a place that’s cheap. It’s not a total dump either and I have enough for a few months’ rent and Mr. Bradford put in a good word for me at a place nearby. I have an interview tomorrow afternoon so I borrowed Scratch’s car and drove here and I’m sorry I didn’t tell you I was coming, but I dunno. We never really talked about nothin’ so I wasn’t sure and—”

“Oh Mitch,” Jonas breathes, smiling like an idiot. “I just love you.”

“I can’t.” Mitch takes a breath and plows on, like he didn’t hear. “I can’t stop thinking ‘bout you, Joey. I mean. I’m not trying to forget ya or anything but fuck.” He looks down, scuffs a worn sneaker against the pavement. “It’s like yer in my head all the time. And it hurts. Here.” He places one long-fingered hand on his chest, over his heart.

Jonas kisses him. He kisses him right there in the common right on the mouth and Jonas sighs against his lips and kisses him back and they keep kissing until Mitch stabs himself with the cactus and swears very loudly and Jonas laughs and drags him back to his dorm.

//

Mitch slides into him, slow, achingly slow, kisses him, twines their fingers together, tells him he loves him, makes him come from all of that.

Jonas looks at him in the dark, places a hand against Mitch’s trembling chest.

“So,” he says, voice low and thick and full of hope, “you’re sticking around then?”

//


End file.
